Sickish

Gah! Not feeling well, but it's not a cold, or flu or life threatening virus, it just problems that crop up all at the same time to make my life miserable.

Auzzie Day!

Australia day can, is, and should always be a great day! National holidays are always a lot of fun no matter what country they're celebrated in, but I always thought that nobody could throw a party quite like the aussies can, mainly because we've so little cultural tradition of our own we borrow them from the rest of the world.

For example, after a wondful shopping trip with some friends around bondi junction, we headed to the Rocks, one of the oldest parts of sydney still intact. The rocks is situated between circular quay and the Sydney harbour bridge , and is one of the more expensive areas for shopping, but today it was the host of the biggest block party in the city. 4 free stages continuously playing music. There were street performers, aboriginal digeridoo players next to performing statues of miners. Street stalls selling jewellery, cloths and ( here's the fun part) food.from every other corner of the globe. I had churros with some caramel sauce, gozleme with lemon juice, chinese dumplings. The only things I thought resembled food closer to home was lemonade and cupcakes.

But that's the beauty of this day, it's a mosh pit of clashing cultures and lifestyle that squirm around each other finding ways to co-exist. As Australia is so new and the majority of us (sadly) either immigrated or had ancestors immigrate, nobody here has the right to say they are a true australian unless they include the term "mutt" in the declaration. Our heritage belongs to the entire world.

Aboriginal people for the most part don't celebrate this day as in a lot of ways it marked the destruction of their own culture, and now they are scrambling to preserve and pass on what is left. This is one of the tragedies of our country, but in its own way it has brought around another revolution. The aboriginal People are natural artists. For millennia they recorded their world in paintings and dance, now these tools and others are continuing to tell their story, even through its most desolate chapter, and they are receiving recognition for their work. I included this part about the indigenous people because they need it, you can't celebrate the here and now without thinking back on the past.

From the past or future, I'll end this on a happier note by saying, nobody throws a party quite as surprising or as fun as this bunch of Aussie mutts. Happy Australia day!

Sleep

Sleep, is good, must do it more, especially after tomorrow. Australia day is the most tiring day for all Aussies, both sober and drunk ones. Not sure which one I'll be, tell you tomorrow.

After sleep....

Magic & Dresden Dolls

Last Saturday I went to see theDresden Dolls perform at the Enmore theatre in Newtown. They were amazing!!! They really played it up for the crowd, going through my favourites like "coin operated boy" and "Missed Me". She is one of my regrets about not having a twitter account buti already have Facebook, this blog and 4 email addresses dammit you have to draw the line somewhere!

Thee more was webcast last weekend but they archived a copy over at moshcam.com and I'll try to embed the video here if it will let me...

Watch Enmore Theatre and other great gigs on Moshcam.

If you find it, WATCH IT! It will change your life and leave you crying on the floor for mummy. You will never settle for anything that does not have Amanda Fucking Palmer and Brian Fucking Viglione. If your lucky you may see me jumping and screaming in the audience, or maybe not for though I did get caught up in the concert and their seductive spell so fully that I waited at the back entrance for them to leave and beg for an autograph (I have NEVER done something so stalkerish in my life, managed to justify it to myself by saying it was only polite to say thank you for the show as they put so much effort into it. It was worth every second of being squashed and knocked over by a drunk and beaten -once by one of Brians drumsticks - in the mosh pit.) Amanda very generously and happily -for someone who must have been trashed after a show that good, leaving at 1 in the morning - signed my ticket and gave me a hug, awwwwww I'm in love all over again.

That was last weekend, this one I went so see a magic show, "the illusionists". Seven very talented magicians currently playing at the opera house. I loved the show, saw some old ones and some new ones. Before yesterday I had never seen a live magic show, I didn't realise the difficulty you have deciding where to look - which is exactly how they want it.

From the people sitting next to me I realised another thing too, people don't go to magic shows to be entertained they go todo battle! Each one secretly thinks they can outsmart the guy onstage, quietly guessing how they do it and muttering the imagined secrets to a partner (or in my case, random stranger) and feel secretly smug about the whole thing.the only time I felt myself justifyably smug was when they said the ball and cups was the oldest trick in magic*. Not true, see the link below.

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=AU#/watch?v=SipLcrPmPOQ

The rest of the time I just sat back and was entertained by the Anti-conjurer playing Russian roulette with a broken bottle and a little girls hand.

If you have the chance to see any of these people perform, do so. I certainly had fun (especially when the Trickster got the watches off six people without them realising it. )

Live shows are spectacular!

One or the Other

In a moment of mindless, thoughtless movement ladies and gentlemen, I have just done the unthinkable.

I have swiped a book.

No I did not steal it I "swiped" it, with most of the connotations that word entails. Heres the story.

Its 10.50 at night on a friday and I am not out partying as any self respecting single24 year old professional should. Instead I am curled up at my desk with a bottle of left over christmas cyder, a copy of Ahn Do's biography "the happiest refugee" and listening to Tim minchin sing about bears hating dancing. In a moment of thoughtless, happy, buzzy pleasure my finger made a movement it has become overly familiar with.

I swiped the page.

Single index finger movement from right to left.

Ladies and gentlemen an involuntary movement of this nature can only mean one thing, I am officially an e-reader. A shame to bibliophiles everywhere.

I understand where this training came from, my iPad is too much fun to use and so useful on the long trip home on the train. Instead of carrying a lone paperback much abused after a week of intense use I can have a library at my fingertips without being on the Internet (Gutenberg project is the best thing to come any uni graduate). I can use my iPad as a reference tool when walking among the stacks or to keep in touch with relatives during lunch break. The tablet has made itself too darn useful! Some of my colleagues have told me plainly that they see them more as a fad, and not too applicable in other areas of life,but the same was said of the Black-crack-berry. I can't turn sideways without hearing whining booksellers moaning about the uncertain future of print(which I think is a load of bollucky bulldung) but I do love my iPad.

As the unconscious movement has proven, the darn thing now has me trained.

Now a quick note in my defence. I still love books. Although the whole point of this post is to agonise I have to say the fact that I was reading an actual hard copy book proves I am not completely converted. So why does it have to be one or the other? Isn't there enough room in the world for both?

A book is so much more than a screen. There is something intimate about curling up with a real book. As many texts as I have stored on my iPad I cant feel the smooth, slightly furry texture of a page or smell the paper and ink as I turn a page for the first time. You can't highlight or graffiti on a screen, doodle in a corner or make notations or dog ear a page. With an ebook I can only stare at a screen and be careful not to drop the bloody expensive toy. A book is a relationship. For however long you hold it in your hand you are part of a secret world. With every new book I read I find myself battling with unknown foes for an uncertain future. I learn and arguing with wise druids and professors, I fall in love with the most unlikely people and weep when they leave.

Constantly I draw different meanings from strange and weird sources and I can't stop! Wouldn't if I could. These imagined scenes become events in my life as my mind plays them as clearly as if they were memories in my life. I see the faces of Belgarath and his daughter Polgara, Shadow, Moist Von Lipvig, Christopher Robin, Mary Lennox, John Proctor, even little Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge and anyone who knows the power of stories will say the same no matter what format it is presented in.

If you still can't believe that written print will last for the next fifty years I will tell you some facts that I havn't seen mentioned in any article yet.

1. Elderly people can't stare at any screen longer than an hour, backlit or not. Eyes too weak, glasses too thick, it can't be done, they demand the real thing.

2. You can't give an ebook as a present, only a voucher and there are some definite opinions about vouchers as gifts... You know what I mean.

3. Would you teach your child to read on an iPad?

Book murderer

I killed books today.

Over a hundred at least. I do it every Tuesday because, as awful as it is, it's part of my job. Now you may be thinking " what kind of monster would destroy innocent literature?" I know I do, and whenever I tell people about it they have trouble understanding too. They see it as a waste of resources or an affront to education or just murder, and truly anyone who loves books like myself automatically sees it the same way.

But there is a reason. Since starting work at the library the first thing I learned about books, or any other source of information for that matter is that it has a lifespan. In academic texts that span is usually 5 years unless it's history and even then only if it is a primary resource. Essays text books journals etc all outlive their usefulness within that short time.

For most other material items the lifespan is as long as its legible, an item is borrowed, read, loved, not loved, returned, borrowed, used as a table top/placemat/chew toy, returned etc. until it is so worn the spine falls apart. This is the best way for a book to go, it seems right somehow for a story to be read to death and more like the natural progression of time that will, eventually, get everyone.

Then there is me, when I take books on tuesdays I take the ones that haven't been borrowed in a year. Picture books too grotty to be wanted again, or items so out of date they're more useful as scrap paper. Some of these items are beautiful, collections of myths and fairy tails, craft books,mtravel books, illustrated volumes of poetry all still in good condition, better than what you find in a second hand book shop most of the time.

Some of it does get resold in the library booksale but most of the withdrawn items are stripped and sent for pulping in the council recycling program, to be recycled intl other materials. Mulch for the garden perhaps, or cheap toilet paper?

I don't like doing it, and occasionally I can save one so long as the cover is removed but then what? Everything has a time, and those books are probably getting more use then they ever had inside the library, that's how I justify to myself what I personally find abhorrent ( word of the day).

So, that is the lifespan of a library book. They're bought, used ( or not), then recycled or sold on. If you find any part of this story unfair I have one thing to say to you.

"Use your library or the books get it!"

Pancakes & Resolutions

Pancakes are a good start to the morning, especially when they're the first batch from a bowl I received as a Christmas present. They would have been better if I hadn't run out of lemon juice but you can't have everything.

So while I was sitting down to a small stack of carbohydrate goodness I started thinking on firsts, firsts happen all the time, sometimes we recognise them and pause to take them in but most times they go by unnoticed. For example how many people remember their first kiss, or first time driving alone, most of you right? Now try to remember your first cup of coffee, first interview, first time using the computer, first night on your own, first true loss of temper, first compliment. It's hard.

Even today, first day of the year, will you remember what you did today? I do, I made pancakes :)

The natural progression of this ponder went from firsts to resolutions, after all the best way to start off a new year is with a resolution. Preferably it will be something different, not the usual "I shall loose weight" or "stop drinking" because unless there's a serious reason, those ones never seem to go anywhere after January. Ideally a resolution is one you tend to keep so this year I will... use this blog. Just for me you understand, it would be lovely if anyone else wants to read my selfish public diary but YOU will not be a major point of concern (no offence).

Second resolution, I will read more good things, less junk - Dickens over fanfiction. I still like fanfiction but it is having the bad side affect of limiting my reading choices. I want to know more about my favourite stories, favourite universes but the downside is I am not looking as hard for new frontiers, new loves.

Third resolution -I will be more generous and adventurous with myself and others. Just like my reading material my life is in danger of stagnating. I am 24, my life's patterns should not be set yet. I have dreams of what I want to do, but lack the courage to do them, or the funds. I will cut corners and search out the unseen experience. Newtown is full of them! If I can't find one there I won't find one anywhere!

For everyone January is a month of promises, both kept and broken. I will do my best to make 2012 a year not soon forgotten.